


DAYS GONE BY

by Nirav_Raveesh



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 04:36:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14277051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nirav_Raveesh/pseuds/Nirav_Raveesh
Summary: Well, it had to happen sometime. The end of the world is finally here.(This story is also available on Wattpad(wattpad.com) under the same name)





	1. VIRUS T3-89-10

V I R U S **LOG** : August 20, 3:30 PM

Official Name: N/A

Testing Scheduled: 23 August 2159

Known effects: N/A

 

V I R U S **LOG** : August 23, 5:00 PM

Official name: N/A

Testing Scheduled: None

Known effects: Elevated Heartbeat, High Temperature, Fever

 

V I R U S **LOG** : August 25, 2:00 AM

Official name: N/A

Testing Scheduled: None

Known effects: Elevated Heartbeat, High Temperature, Fever, Death

 

V I R U S **LOG** : August 26, 5:00 AM

Official name: N/A

Testing Scheduled: None

Known effects: Elevated Heartbeat, High Temperature, Fever, Death, Reanimation

 


	2. 1

M A T T H E W **KANE  
**

 

I crouched behind the counter, aware of the growls and snarls of the Infected just a few feet away from me. I was also aware of the fact that they were standing between me and the doors.

I risked a quick peek over the counter, and spotted three of the Infected, just standing around. My buddy, Mark was also behind the counter, clutching his gun so hard that his knuckles were white. He looked at me as if to say, _What do we do_?

I went through all the scenarios in my head. Careful not to knock anything over, I turned and looked at the back wall of the store. We had come through a door behind the counter, from the back of the store, but that was exactly what had drawn the Infected _to_ us. The moment we opened the damn thing, it gave a huge creak and these fools had unfortunately heard it.

I scanned the rest of the store, looking for another way out. Nothing, apart from the front door. Screw that.

I sat back down beside Mark, shaking my head. He looked like he was about to groan, but thought better of it and closed his mouth. After some time, he looked at me and mouthed the words, "Distract them."

Great idea. One problem, though. Even if we could distract them, we couldn't sneak out the back door. The damn thing would give us away. It would have to be the front door.

Crap. I nodded at Mark and crept along the length of the counter. There were a bunch of empty soda cans on the floor. I took one of them, careful not to make any sound, and lobbed it over the counter, as far away from us as I could. It smashed into one of the shelves and rolled away. The three Infected at the front snapped their heads towards the direction of the sound, and slowly began moving towards the general direction. I crept back to Mark and nodded.

Trying to make as little sound as possible, we vaulted over the counter and made a mad, crouching dash towards the door. I slowly pushed the door open.

That when we saw them. A whole horde of Infected, standing twitching in front of us, only about a hundred meters away or so. Panicking, I pushed Mark back into the store. Judging by his terrified look, he had seen the horde too. We made our way back to our hidey-space behind the counter, careful not to make any noise.

"Well, crap," Mark muttered. "Now what?"

I ignored him and started to think. If we wanted to get out of here alive, we would need to take care of the Infected in the store itself. Then, we would need to get out through the back door. I nodded and explained my idea to Mark. At the end of it, he seemed doubtful that it was good, but since it the only idea we had, we decided to wing it.

We crept over to the place where the Infected were. I gestured to the one on the left, indicating that I would take down that one. Mark nodded and made his way to the one on the right. As quickly as I could, I whipped out my knife and plunged the blade into its neck. Blood spurted out onto my hand, but I kept the knife steady. When the body went slack, I pulled the blade free from its body with a slight squelching sound. The other Infected seemed to have heard something because it started to turn. As fast as I could, I raised my knife and stabbed at its head. The blade went straight through, and the body went rigid. I pulled my knife out and looked at Mark who had started grabbing stuff from the shelves. I grabbed my backpack and started stuffing it full. Once we had emptied the store of all that we needed, we strode back to the back door, opened it and ran out as fast as we could.

We had survived one more day.

+++

Hours later, we were in the middle of the woods, a fire burning in front of us and our food was warming up. Most of it was canned stuff that we'd found in stores. There was no hope of steak and potatoes in the middle of the apocalypse, that was for sure. But at least we had something to eat.

After ravaging what was supposed to be our dinner, I decided that I would take first watch. Mark didn't argue. All that running our asses off had taken his toll on him. He slid into his sleeping bag and dozed off in less than a minute. I, on the other hand, was feeling very awake.

About five hours passed when I woke Mark up and told him that it was his turn to stand watch. He nodded blearily and sat down on the ground, his hands gripping his gun tightly.

Five hours later, I was shaken awake frantically by Mark, his eyes wild with fear. I jumped out of my sleeping bag, lunging for my gun. Turning to him, I asked, "What is it?"

He pointed into the forest and said, "There's someone there." His finger was shaking.

I turned and readied myself for a fight. "Get behind something," I muttered, and dashed behind a fat oak tree in the centre of the clearing. My hand was trembling as I checked my ammo. I peeked over the edge, trying to see if anyone was walking into the clearing. No one. For a moment I thought Mark was just mistaken or something due to lack of sleep.

But then I did hear it. A large group of people were now crashing through trees, the sound growing louder every second. My heart was beating so fast it was uncomfortable.

Seconds later, I heard people running into the clearing. I gripped my gun and popped out of my cover, pointing it at them.

"Whoa!" The girl in the front said. She and the others looked like they had been running nonstop for hours. Sweat drenched their clothes, and almost all of them were scratched and bleeding. "Calm down, dude," she said, raising her hands above her head. There were about ten people total. I scanned the crowd, looking for weapons. To my relief, only three of them actually had guns. The rest had baseball bats and wooden planks in their hands. The girl who had spoken had a Browning Hi-Power tucked into a makeshift holster that was attached to a belt.

All of them were now looking at me and Mark, who had scrambled out of cover to stand beside me with a strange look in their eyes. Nobody wanted to risk getting shot, but they really wanted what we had.

Looks like our chances of tagging along with a group were zero. We would have to fight this out.

The girl in the front(who was evidently the leader) was staring at my AK-47 with a longing look.

"Look, maybe we can make a deal, okay?" She said.

"Yeah, what sort of deal?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. It didn't work. The girl smiled, a dangerous look in her eyes.

"You give us your stuff, we let you live." She said.

"No," Mark said, his voice somehow steady and firm.

"No? Well, in case you haven't noticed, there are more of us than they are of you."

And before either I or Mark could react, she grabbed her gun, raised it and fired at me.


	3. 2

M A R K **WILLIAMS**

 

Matt wasn't dead. The bullet had whizzed past his head, nearly taking his ear away with it. His eyes were closed, and his face was contorting in shock as he realised that he was still alive. The crowd in front of us were frozen as well, but I knew the wouldn't be for long. I raised my gun and fired a quick burst of shots.

Three of them, including the girl in the front, fell, blood spraying everywhere. The others jumped out of their trance and rushed towards me, hands and baseball bats raised, ready to bash my head in. But before anyone could do anything, one of them fell, an arrow sticking out of his head. Then another. That was when we realised that _someone else_ was shooting as well.

Grabbing my backpack, I ran, dragging Matt along with me. We sprinted into the woods, branches and leaves smacking and cutting into our face. I heard more people fall, but I kept running. My feet were tripping, but I kept myself level. Matt was behind me, grunting and cursing.

We kept running for a couple of minutes longer until we stumbled into another clearing. Stopping to catch our breath, we looked wildly at our surroundings. There seemed to be nobody in sight, and we couldn't hear anything, apart from the commotion that we left behind us. Even that wasn't very clear, thankfully. We didn't need any more of those Infected running after us.

"What do you think?" Matt gasped, sitting down. "Keep goin' on?"

"Yeah. We don't know if those freaks are dead or not. And I don't want to meet the mysterious shooter either." I said.

"Yeah, that was weird. D'you reckon they were friendly?" He said, getting up.

"Rightly said"We don't know, do we? I think it's best if we stay away from anyone else." I said.

At that moment, someone held a knife to my throat and said, "Rightly said."

"What the-?" I managed to yell, and Matt turned, raising his AK-47. The girl pushed the knife a little bit harder. Another voice, this one male(and a little gruff), spoke.

"Look, we swear we aren't going to hurt you. It was us who saved your butts back in that clearing over there." He jerked his thumb back to the direction from where we'd run from. Both of them had a slight Irish accent mixed with their speech. It wasn't that noticeable but was there all the same.

"I'll drop the knife but if you try to hurt me or my brother in any way, I'll stick this into you, no hesitation. Same goes for buddy-boy over there." The girl said, clearly referring to Matt. "Got it?"

"Yeah, got it," I grunted, trying to not move my head any more than I needed to.

"Well, then," she said and moved the knife away from me. I turned and faced them. The guy was tall, more than six feet for sure. He was well-built, looked to be in his early twenties and had an aura of skill about him. Ditto for the girl, who I suspected was his sister because she looked kind of like him. Both of them had dyed hair, the guy's being a sort of mixture of green and blue with the girl's being a dark purple.

She looked at me and Matt for a second, before taking something out of her pocket and throwing it towards me. "Here, one of you left this behind."

I caught it and looked at it. It was a pocketknife with the word, "From Emma" scratched on it. Holding back the lump that was trying to form in my throat, I stuck it in my pocket.

"Thanks," I said, my words coming out a bit choked. Clearing my throat, I blurted out, "Thanks a lot."

The girl grinned at me. "No problemo."

Matt, who had been quiet this whole time, finally spoke. "So, um... can we tag along with you?"

The guy looked at the girl and smiled. Turning to us, he said, "I was about to ask you the same thing. Care for some company? Because even when it's the apocalypse, you need people with you." After a small pause, he added, "Friends."

"Definitely," said me and Mark, together.

They grinned. The guy held out his hand, and I shook it. "I'm Connor," he said. His hand was rough but pleasant to hold, and it looked like he had been in quite the amount of fistfights.

"This lady over here is Maya, my sister." Matt walked up to us and sat down on the ground. Maya looked at me and smiled yet again. I gave a feeble grin back. She sat down on the ground, next to Matt. Connor and I followed suit.

+++

Hours later, we were still talking. Connor and Matt were having a spirited conversation. Their guns were lying beside them, within arms reach, just in case. I glanced at them and smiled.

 

"It's like the apocalypse isn't even going on," Maya said, voicing my exact thoughts. She leaned against the gnarled stump of a fallen tree.

"Hmm... you're a mind reader as well as a crack shot?" I enquired, with mock surprise.

"Nah... just a crack shot." She smiled again. It was nice to see a smile for a change. In the three months I and Matt had been running from Infected, bandits and who knows what else, we found smiles very hard to come by. And now, we had two more people on our side, both of them cheerful, which was quite a welcome sight in the apocalypse. They both seemed quite unperturbed by the end of the world, which was kind of weird, I suppose.

"Where are you guys from?" I asked.

"Well, our parents are Indian, and we were born in the UK, so..."

"The explains the slight accents."

She snorted. "Yes, mate, it does," she said, in an exaggerated Irish accent. "I and my bro moved to the States about three years ago. Change of scenery," she added.

I nodded. "Well, the world's gone to shit."

"Yep. Was not expecting that to happen."

"That bow's pretty cool," I said, pointing to the bow lying beside her on the grass.

"Yes, it is. It's a compound bow that bro over there bought for me on my birthday. We used to hunt together, you know,"

"Before all this, you mean?"

"Yeah." She looked like she wanted to ask me something; she kept biting her lip and was on the verge of saying something several times before shutting her mouth. I think I knew what she was curious about.

"You want to know who Emma is," I said, maybe a bit more bluntly than I intended to.

She looked at me with widened eyes. "Um... yeah." After a pause, she added. " _You're_ a mind reader now?"

I laughed. "It's kind of obvious."

"So... er... who is this 'Emma'?"

I stared at her for some time. Then finally I spoke, "Not now. One day."

She looked at me, slightly disappointed. "Okay, I guess." She checked her watch. "It's getting late, we should probably get to sleep."I nodded, moved my gun slightly closer to my sleeping bag. I slid inside it and tried to sleep.

Sleep came quite easily.


End file.
